Chinese delegation for Hangzhou Asian Games established

The Chinese delegation for the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games was officially set up on Tuesday. A total of 886 athletes from the Chinese mainland will participate in the multi-sport event which is set to open on September 23 in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province.

Among the 886 athletes, 36 are Olympic champions. The average age of the Chinese athletes, 437 female and 449 male, is 25. Some 630 athletes will make their Asian Games debut this year.

The athletes cover a wide range in age from 13-year-old skateboarder Cui Chenxi to the 60-year-old bridge player Dai Jianming.

A total of 71 athletes are from 19 ethnic groups including the Hui, Mongolian, Zhuang, Miao, Manchu, Uygur and Tibetan groups.

Except kabaddi and cricket, the delegation will take part in 38 sports and 407 events of the Asian showpiece that runs till October 8.

The Hangzhou Games will also witness the debut of some emerging sports that are quite popular among young people, such as break dancing and e-sports.

A total of 12,417 athletes from all 45 Asian countries and regions will compete at the Hangzhou Asian Games, which will be the third Asian Games held in China, after the 1990 Beijing Asian Games and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.

The first group of delegation members, three of them from China's Hong Kong, arrived in Hangzhou on Sunday.

China topped the medal table of the Guangzhou Games with 199 golds and 416 medals in total in 2010, when China fielded the largest delegation in the history of the Asian Games with 977 athletes.

Xu Jie, a Beijing-based sports reporter, told the Global Times that China's women's volleyball team and basketball team are title favorites in team sports.

"China will surely maintain its stranglehold in some individual sports like table tennis, diving, shooting and weightlifting. In team sports, we can pin our hopes on the women's volleyball and basketball teams. The women's soccer team also has a chance to triumph," said Xu.

China has dominated the medal table for 10 consecutive Asian Games since 1982 and has set the goal of continuing the momentum.

"Our primary objective is to unleash our true competitive potential and strive for excellent athletic achievements," said Gao Zhidan, director of the General Administration of Sport of China.

Chinese athletes will also take this opportunity to gain experience and prepare for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.